Don't Just Say Hello(nohello.net) |
Don't Just Say Hello(nohello.net) |
One of the managers who was not a fan of mine (or anyone) tried to get me in trouble for not responding to his team (they had a habit of handing off tickets they didn’t like the look of to other teams).
I gathered up all the plain “hello” messages and sent it as my response. There were hundreds of them in a single month. My response was that I was working my own tickets and can’t stop to address “hello” messages with no context hundreds of times a month. If they have a critical situation, then they need to say so to get me to break away from my critical situation….
I live in New York.
These cultures have radically different approaches to communication.
New Yorkers want you to get right to the point. No dilly-dallying. I think that most of the SV Californians I've dealt with, have been similar.
They be like:
Hey Chris,
Do you have a published API for the Widget library that was recommended?
Hey Chris,
I hope this finds you in good spirits, and good health. Down here, we're experiencing a bit of a heat wave, so our air conditioners are running all day.
I was writing to ask you if you have an API spec. for that library that was recommended to me...Or worse,
"Hi (name)"
"How are you, all good?"
"A question"
"Do you know anything about (system)?"
"I have this problem..."
Just have a bitnof respect for my time and attention and write your damn message already.
I know it's not exactly your point, but I turned off the "X is typing..." indicator in Slack and it made my day to day life at work surprisingly better.
The calling analogy doesn't work because the person on the other side of the phone had to pick up and is present. The "hello" is more like leaving a voicemail saying "If you're there, pick up, but you don't need to call back".
smart guy, ahead of time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K-L9uhsBLM
let's do letters next? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ella_Minnow_Pea)
If you gotta call someone for support, do you say hello and wait for them to say hello back or do you just unload your question?
Well, you can also just send a second message if your first one doesn't get a quick response:
Hey quick question
Just wondering when project X is due
Would this be slightly better as one message? Maybe in some situations. But some people would find it to be self-centered to jump right into "what can you do for me?".
About self centered: would you find it self-centered, or would you instead appreciate seeing the complete message?
If you just go "hello" and have this synchronous chat, then there isn't time to orient yourself, because the expectation is to respond as if you're in a face-to-face convo.
Even for calls, "hey, do you have a sec to help me troubleshoot the CDN setup?" is way better than "hello," followed by a call if you respond.
It's not definitely a sign that I'm actually interested in greeting you, or asking about your migraine.
Just something like "how do you do" which is a total nonsense either, so this discussion is moot.
Furthermore, I can't actually answer in the shorthand, because I don't know anything about it. "can you talk?" - for how long? about what? with who? I have no idea how to respond to you.
Please, just tell me what you want - "Hi, wondering if you have 5 minutes to chat about <topic>?".
I used to think I was socially awkward... but man, even at my worst I would have known better than to send this link as a response to anybody.
are we? imo there's just a different form of consensus for async communication, a more apt comparison would perhaps be a snail-mail letter: would you send a letter with "Hello!" and wait for a reply? just include the hello with the rest of the message :P
maybe the disconnect people are having with this is whether instant messaging is actually async, or does one draw the line at email?
Which isn't relevant at all in asynchronous communication methods like messaging.
> If you gotta call someone for support, do you say hello and wait for them to say hello back or do you just unload your question
Phone calls and messaging are different.
HELLO STOP